Quote from: rjong999 on July 07, 2009, 05:15:59 AM
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And no, for me there is no difference between lying about something and hiding something that you obviously can understand would be of interest to someone else, specially if that someone else is a close relative.  This may sound odd to some of you here, but I have never had any secrets for my family, and have never seen the need to hide anything from them.

Yes YOU can reveal YOUR secrets to whoever you choose.  You have no right whatsoever to "out" anyone else against their will.  To suggest that you do does indeed sound extremely odd to me.

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Then again, just the idea of hurting A. is enough to understand that I will have to make do with the situation one way or another, and the most likely course of action ssems to be to just ignore A.'s "background", even though I think it does not do her justice for the courage and the pain she must have gone through.

You really need to understand that parading one's transition like some trophy of righteousness is the very last thing most trans-people would want to do.  If you truly appreciate what she's had endure, then surely you can see that leaving the past in the past is precisely the "justice" she deserves!   I mean, I'm proud of my gf too for what she's been through but I wouldn't dream of undermining all the work she's done to live full time as a woman by proactively revealing her transitional past - and absolutely not against her will!

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The basic question is: If I treat A. "just like a woman" (which, believe me, is just what I do!), and forget about her background, will I not also disrespect the pain, the courage, the effort, the whole fact that she has had SRS (which obviously, as you all made clear, is a huge thing for her)?

Ok - you can't be "treating her just like a woman" if you're yearning to reveal her transitional past.  The way to respect her courage and effort etc. is to treat her just like a *natural born* woman.   

QuoteBut hiding information from someone you know would be interested to get that information is dishonest, I think. Or at least, I was brought up to believe so.

I strongly disagree because this statement assumes the someone who would be interested has any right to know - they don't.  Most people are naturally curious about the personal lives of others (that's why gossip magazines sell so well) but that does not confer upon them the right to know.

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and do not worry: I will NEVER disclose her secret to anyone without her explicit consent, and after reading all your good advise, I will never take any initiatives in that direction either. This summer I have planned to propose marriage to her and we will live happily ever after...

I'm glad to see that you don't plan to disclose her secret.  I sincerely wish you both every happiness for the future.

Quote from: rjong999 on July 07, 2009, 05:15:59 AM
But hiding information from someone you know would be interested to get that information is dishonest, I think. Or at least, I was brought up to believe so.

My wife had a child out-of-wedlock (to use an archaic expression) when she was very young.  She hid her pregnancy from her family and gave the child up for adoption.  The whole experience was terrible for her and, in some ways, she never really recovered from it.  I'm sure many people would be interested in this information, including her family, but I never mentioned it to anyone.  It was her secret to reveal or hide as she wished.

Isn't A's secret the same?

- Kate

Thank you all for your wise words, they have certainly helped me.

Maybe slightly off-topic, but if I understand this correctly, the majority of you, and maybe all, think it makes perfect sense to hide your TS from the world. Now you must understand that I am relatively new to this, half a year ago I thought TS was something for old gays dressing up in womens underwear and poor brazillian male hookers, being just a white middle-aged ignorant male chauvinist pig. Now I am still a white middle-aged male chauvinist pig but just a little less ignorant (regarding TS, that is) and I wonder: where's the emancipantion movement? Why hide things at all? Where is the real pain: living in a body of the wrong sex or having to live with a secret which is so easily broken, so fragile, and still, you fear that so much...isn't that really painfull, not being able to share yourself as what you are? Do you not feel the need to stand up to society and say: yes, I'm a TS, so what? Or is this utopia?

It depends on how you view this all.

I'm a woman, that's my identity.
I have lived the transsexual experience, that's something else.

I think that most people who spend enough time with me will notice some XY artifacts.
I just think that it's not necessary to explicitly talk about it.

If it serves some political end, I will identify myself as transsexual, but in the day-to-day what's the point?

The problem is when someone finds out you're TS they may quickly and forever change their opinion of you based solely on being TS.  What you do, who you are, how you act will all be of little significance.  Some people are blind and ignorant and have no desire to change.  They can't overcome their prejudices.

You said yourself what you used to think TS was and that's not uncommon.  You were ignorant about this but you have opened your mind because you're in love.  Can you guarantee everyone you are "honest with" will do the same? 

I've seen people erase everything they knew about me and drop me like a brick once I came out.  I was shocked at how many people could suddenly change, right before your eyes.  I had no idea they were like this until I challenged them.  You never know.

Are you and "A" willing to take that risk?  Are YOU willing to be ousted from your family or shunned by your friends once you reveal "A" is TS?  Those things are very real possibilities.

One of the things many therapists tell those who want to transition is "be prepared to lose everything".  That's a pretty powerful statement and gives you an idea what the uneducated believe about transsexuals and how bad the stigma is. 

Are you prepared to lose everything?  You may not lose everything but you should be prepared for it.

Julie

Maybe my experience will help a little. When I first met my best friend Stephanie, in 1981, I (who am classified as "straight") didn't know she was transsexual. We became friends and I realized there was something different about her, so one day I just asked her. We sat down in a coffee shop and she told me how she'd been born a boy, but knew she wasn't really a boy, and how she eventually had surgery in her early 20s, I think it was. She told me the whole story. I was a bit taken aback at first, but it didn't take me too long to get used to the idea.

Then, after that, we never talked about it again until recently. Some years ago, she became a Buddhist, and she says this helped her to accept herself more completely ... both her masculine and feminine side, and now she is much more comfortable with herself (this makes sense to me because I don't believe anyone is 100% male or female). So we talked about that for a bit, and that was that.

I guess what I'm saying here is that all those years when we didn't talk about it any more were just fine with me, and with her, too. Really, there wasn't anything to talk about any more. I think this may apply to your situation, too.

Quote from: rjong999 on July 07, 2009, 07:56:37 AM
Now I am still a white middle-aged male chauvinist pig but just a little less ignorant (regarding TS, that is) and I wonder: where's the emancipantion movement? Why hide things at all? Where is the real pain: living in a body of the wrong sex or having to live with a secret which is so easily broken, so fragile, and still, you fear that so much...isn't that really painfull, not being able to share yourself as what you are? Do you not feel the need to stand up to society and say: yes, I'm a TS, so what? Or is this utopia?

That's exactly the paradox that makes the whole TS situation so confusing/complicated.  I think many of us who are in this situation (as opposed to you who are not in the situation), don't see being TS as a 'characteristic' of a person.  It's not like being blonde, or being gay, or being black, or hispanic, etc.  Being TS is more of a stage.  For many of us the goal is to move on from the stage of being TS to being a normal male or female.  So a lot of us don't have any dream of emancipation or something like that, it's not a secret you hide, but more of something you go through and then hopefully move past.

So that's A's situation (from what I can tell) -- she's post op and wants to put that other stuff behind her.  Your only role in that is to be as helpful and supportive of her as you can be in whatever decision she makes, because it is HER decision.  If you have no problems with it that's fantastic -- but let her decide what is appropriate for her.

I don't know if anyone else has been able to clarify this...I might just be repeating another person's words but...

In the first place, a person who even wants to start transitioning is *already* a woman. The fact is even more hard to deny when that person gets a vagina. You're with a girl who has XY chromosones, that's it.

The very fact that she waited two years to reciprocate your feelings (and the fact that you're using the female pronoun) should tell you all you need to know.

rjong999, I am very new on this forum with no experience as TS to speak of but I would like to stick my nose into this conversation.

It seems to me that you have been given much advice that comes from the wisdom of collectively many, many years of experience.

Not everything you know is other peoples business. Period. Many, many things in everybody's life are things that are much better never discussed. For every person that knows there will be many more people that know because everyone of them will tell someone else. I can only imagine how horrid that would be for "A". Why would you even consider doing that to her?

You didn't say much about "A" but it kinda sounds to me like you found yourself a wonderful girl, don't ruin it for yourself or ruin her life.

erty

Quote from: rjong999 on July 07, 2009, 05:15:59 AM
The basic question is: If I treat A. "just like a woman" (which, believe me, is just what I do!), and forget about her background, will I not also disrespect the pain, the courage, the effort, the whole fact that she has had SRS (which obviously, as you all made clear, is a huge thing for her)?
Or will time heal whatever wounds were caused by this thing, and will we live our lives as ordenary couples, where the wife takes her daily dose of hormones, has her face de-haired more often then normal and has some beautifull pictures of a holiday in Thailand, some years ago?

We don't do this because we are brave, and we certainly don't do it for respect or notoriety.

Many people think of transsexuals as drag queens. They revel in it, we don't. We want it all behind us and forgotten about.  A told you because she (correctly) felt you needed or should know and it was the right thing to do. She did not do it for a cause, or any other reason. She simply told you because she HAD TO. She doesn't want to go through that again with you or anyone else or champion a cause.

Hang out here and see the pain some people here have gone through. I think you fail to see how much it would effect your life as well as hers.

I'll add one more vote on this theme.  We are TS because we were born with a body that didn't match our minds and hearts - our soul, if you will.  Once we modify the body to match who we are, we just want to live our lives.  Some of us think of it as correcting a birth defect - once corrected, why keep bringing it up?

I recently went to a convention of several thousand people.  Some people realized I am TG and some didn't.  The only time I mentioned it was when it was relevant to what we were discussing.  (Usually having to do with LGBT rights.)

In a way, the relative invisibility of successful transsexuals is a problem for us because people make judgements about groups or types of people based on who they know.  If people don't realize that that lovely friendly neighbor is TS, they might think TS's are drag queens, etc.  But it is next to impossible to transition in secret, so people are getting to know we are just normal people trying to make it through life.  Not all of us are activists.

If "A" wants to lead a quiet, normal life, let her.  It is not up to you to make her a poster child for the movement.

- Kate